Gray Moon Rising: Seasons of the Moon (3 page)

T
HREE

Open House

A warm wind rippled through
the long grass outside of the Gresham ranch. It tasted like oncoming summer—the first breeze without the bite of winter’s cold in months. A lone white cloud drifted over a hill dotted with violet blossoms.

Dust kicked up behind a steel blue Chevy Chevelle as it turned off the highway and bumped up the road to the ranch house. It slowed by the mailbox. The window rolled down.

Seth reached out an arm to remove a handful of envelopes. The engine idled as he sat back to flip through them.

He had brown skin, brown eyes, and brown hair, which he had been growing out and had straightened so that it reached his jaw. His skin had gotten even darker since he quit the football team and dedicated his time to working on the ranch instead. It seemed like the least he could do, since Gwyn was letting him stay with her until he graduated high school in three weeks.

“We’re reaching record highs this spring!” the radio announced. “It got up to eighty-eight degrees yesterday, which is the warmest first week of May we’ve seen since the year 1865. That is crazy. Don’t you think that’s crazy, Bill?”

“Crazy good!” Bill drawled. “And the horses are
loving
it. I got to take Old Blue out for her first good run this season…”

Seth turned the radio down and the car’s fan up.

He glanced through the stack of envelopes. Hospital bills. Advertisements from the Realtor’s office. The weekly specials from the grocery store. And another hospital bill. There were no letters from Rylie, and nothing from any of the universities he had applied to. Twice the disappointment, but nothing new.

He tossed the mail onto the passenger’s seat and drove the rest of the way to the ranch house.

There were three cars waiting by the door into the kitchen, which was how everybody got into Gwyneth Gresham’s house. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had opened the front door. One of the trucks belonged to the gardener they hired to beat the orchard into shape, one was the Realtor’s, and the third was a black SUV that Seth didn’t recognize. It must have belonged to one of the prospective buyers for the ranch.

He could make out figures moving through the freshly washed windows of the barn. The Realtor was working her magic.

Seth kicked the mud off his boots before entering the kitchen.

Aunt Gwyn sat on a stool by the counter as she arranged tulips in a ceramic vase. Even though it was over eighty degrees again, she was wearing a long-sleeved shirt and hat inside. She was self-conscious about all of her bruises. “Hey, son,” she greeted Seth as he handed her the mail. “How was school?”

“It was all right.”

“All right?” She narrowed her eyes. He could feel the weight of her gaze on the back of his neck as he filled a glass with filtered water. “Sounds mighty ominous.”

Seth forced his features into a solemn mask and took a long drink before responding. “Yeah. I got to see my grades.”

Gwyn set the scissors down and folded her hands. Her thick gray braids were undone, leaving her hair in looping curls over her shoulders. Combined with her heavily lined face, she looked like a very stern old wise woman. “Tell me you at least got an A on your term paper.”

“I did,” he said as seriously as possible. Then he couldn’t hold it back anymore. His mouth split in a huge grin. “And I’ve got A’s on everything else, too!”

She gave him a dirty look that didn’t hide the warmth radiating from her eyes. Her cheeks dimpled. “You had me going there for a minute.”

“It gets better. The school counselor said I’ve done so much extra credit that I’ll pass all my classes with A’s, even if I flunk finals!”

Gwyn flung her hands in the air and gave a whoop. “Damn, boy, you don’t do things halfway! Come here, come here.”

Seth bent down and let her give him a hug. Her body was frail, but she wasn’t quite as gaunt as she had been around the New Year. Her embrace warmed him in a way that had nothing to do with record highs. He had never been congratulated for good grades before moving in with Gwyn. She made him feel like a superhero.

“Thank you,” he said, planting a kiss on her temple.

“Ah, shut up. You’re making me all mushy.” She swatted him on the shoulder. “Get out of here and find something useful to do, Einstein.”

“You kidding me? I’m not doing anything useful for the next month.” He flopped onto the stool next to her.

“You’ve still got to finish the year out.”

“I know, I know.” His smile faded. “Have we gotten any calls today?”

Gwyn cleared her throat and went back to trimming stems. “Only from folks wanting to see the ranch.”

It was hard to feel too happy when they hadn’t spoken directly to Rylie in months. She had only called once, all the way back in February, and it was to ask her aunt about how treatments were progressing. She refused to speak to Seth. He did hear from Abel every Monday and Thursday, and he got secondhand updates about Rylie that way, but it wasn’t the same.

“I still haven’t heard back from any of the universities,” Seth said, which was only fractionally less depressing than his girlfriend’s refusal to speak with him.

“Bet things are just going slow.”

Seth bent a flower’s stem in his fingers. “Maybe I’m that terrible. Maybe nobody wants to touch me.”

Gwyn snorted. “Sure, wonder boy. You and all your perfect grades are so damn offensive that nobody will dare respond to your applications. I’m convinced. Tell you what: I’ll make some calls tomorrow and see what’s going on. All right? But you can’t sit around. I told you to find something useful to do, and I meant it.”

Seth gave an exaggerated groan. “Fine. How’s the orchard going?”

“Dunno. You can check on the gardener when the Realtor’s done showing the newest lady around.”

“Is this one actually going to make an offer?”

Gwyn shrugged. “Heck if I know. I’ve got plenty else to concern myself with.” She plumped the flowers up and tilted the vase to examine it from another angle. “What do you think? Pretty nice, huh?”

“It’s… flowery.”

“Yeah, yeah. Get outside.”

Seth drained his glass of water, put it in the sink, and headed outside. He grabbed one of Gwyn’s spare hats on the way out and checked the weeds sprouting next to the steps. He had sprayed weed killer on them twice, but they kept coming back. Pulling them would be productive, but it was way too hot.

Plopping the straw fedora on his head, he stretched out on the hood of the Chevelle. The glass was warm beneath his back as he reclined on the windshield. It would be a great time for a nap.

But he didn’t close his eyes. He tipped his hat down to shade his face and leaned around to grab his binder from the passenger’s seat. Seth flipped it open to blank piece of paper and chewed on his pen for a minute before writing.

Rylie,

Spring’s here. You’d like it. There’s flowers blooming, and Gwyn’s on a cleaning frenzy. Getting stuff done makes her so happy.

And you know, graduation is coming up. I’ve got such good grades that I’m definitely walking even if I blow my finals. It’s hard to believe I made it. I didn’t think I ever would. But even though I’m getting ready to graduate, it’s not as good as I expected.

Not without you…

Feet crunched on the dirt. Seth pushed the brim of his hat back to watch the Realtor return to her car. The prospective buyer was hidden behind her.

He folded the letter and tucked it in his back pocket, pretending not to listen to their conversation. “You should really see it at night,” the Realtor said with all the enthusiasm of an artist sharing her masterpiece. “You can come back this evening if you want to see more. The fireflies…”

“I’ve seen enough.”

Every muscle in Seth’s body turned to stone.

He didn’t want to turn around. As long as he didn’t see her, he wouldn’t have to admit to himself that he knew that voice. There was no way she had the nerve to come back. Not after what she did to Rylie.

The Realtor said her goodbyes and drove away, leaving him alone with the buyer.

He slid to the ground and faced her.

If vipers could grow two legs and walk among humans, Eleanor would have been their queen. She was tall, muscular, and mercilessly beautiful. Her hair was slicked back. Her shoulders were straight. She wore her usual uniform of a black tank top and cargo pants, although she had thrown a shirt over it to make her look fractionally less military.

Eleanor didn’t smile for Seth.

“Hello,” she said.

He removed the fedora and held it to his chest. “Mom. What are you doing here? You can’t tell me you want to buy the ranch. You couldn’t even afford it.”

“You don’t know anything about me, boy,” Eleanor said with venom in her voice.

Seth thought about the guns in the house. He had only kept one—his favorite rifle—and it was locked in a living room cabinet, since Gwyn didn’t want weapons in his bedroom. It was too far away. Knowing his mom, she had at least two knives and a handgun somewhere on her body.

He inched toward the kitchen door. Annoyance flitted through Eleanor’s eyes. “I didn’t come back to buy the ranch, and I didn’t come back to fight you. Stop thinking about running.”

“I’ve stopped running. You’re the one who left.”

Eleanor folded her arms. “And it looks like I’m not the only one who did. Where’s that blond tramp? What happened to your happily ever after?”

“Not to disrespect,
Mom
, but that’s none of your business.”

“It’s fine. You don’t have to tell me. I know where she is.”

Sudden fear for Rylie made him raise his fists, but a single look from Eleanor made him freeze in his tracks. Nobody did icy stares like his mom. “Leave her alone,” he growled.

She glanced at her watch, unimpressed by his threat. “I’m almost out of time. Listen to me, boy: I’ve got a new family now. A better family. And I’ve come to bring you into the fold.” She swept a hand to the black SUV. “See what I’ve got? That’s just the beginning. They’ve given me money, a home, a purpose. They’re called the Union. It’s a whole army of men like you and your daddy.”

Seth’s father had been what was called a kopis—the latest in a long line of people who hunted supernatural creatures. His dad, and their entire family, specialized in taking down werewolves. Being a little stronger and faster than most humans gave them the edge. An army of them could be bad. Really bad.

“What purpose did they give you?” he asked.

“Werewolves are on the move all around the world. They’re converging.” She said the last word carefully, like it was a vocabulary term she had recently learned.

“Why?”

“The
why
doesn’t matter. This is our chance.” Eleanor shook her fists with barely restrained anger. “The werewolves took everything from us. They took your daddy’s life and ate his spleen, they mauled your brother, and they took you from me, too. Now they’re going to all be in the same place, and me and the Union team are going to kill them. All of ‘em.”

“Are you kidding? There’s got to be thousands of them.”

She smiled a nasty smile. “Barely a hundred. This is the end, and we’ve almost won. All we’ve got to do is one final hunt.”

“Where’s the convergence?”

Eleanor seemed to take his question to mean that he wanted to go. Her smile turned triumphant. “Gray Mountain.”

It made sense in a sick way. That was where it had all begun. The legends said that the animal gods had descended on the mountain to give humans the ability to shapeshift. That was where Jericho had tried to start his pack, and that was where Rylie’s life as she knew it had ended.

“We’ve already got a team waiting there, but I came back for you.” Eleanor spread her arms wide, like she was offering a hug to him. He couldn’t remember ever having hugged his mom before. Not even in his earliest memories. “Let’s be a family again.”

“It takes more than blood to be family,” Seth said.

Anger clouded her expression. “You ungrateful little punk.”

Gwyneth emerged from the house. Her hat hung over her back, and she cradled a shotgun in the crook of her arm like a baby. In the sunlight, her skin looked a fraction too pale, and her hair was more frazzled than usual. But her confident stride didn’t betray her weakness. She braced her feet a short distance up the hill. “I’m pretty sure the boy wants you to leave him alone.”

She didn’t aim the gun, and she didn’t have to. Eleanor took a big step back, keeping both Seth and Gwyn in her sights. Her hands hovered at her hips like an Old West gunslinger.

“Stay out of what’s none of your business, Gresham,” Eleanor growled.

“You okay, Seth?” Gwyn called. He nodded. “You want this woman gone?”

He hesitated. His mother glared at him, making it clear that he had better give the right answer if he didn’t want to deal with it later. “Yeah,” he said. Eleanor looked like she had been slapped.

“You’re making a mistake,” she said.

Gwyn pumped the shotgun. “You heard him.”

Eleanor glared with black hatred, but she didn’t argue. She paused before getting in the SUV. “I’ll be at the motel another night if you change your mind.”

He shielded his eyes from the sun and watched her drive down the hill to the highway. Gwyn unloaded the shotgun behind him. “What was that about?” she asked, pocketing the shells.

“She said all the werewolves in the world are converging in one place. She’s going to try to kill them.”

“Would ‘all the werewolves’ include Rylie and Abel?”

“Yeah. It would.”

“Then we better go save them,” she said, and she went inside to prepare.

F
OUR

The Plan

Once Rylie had control of
her wolf again, she opened the door to her bedroom. Abel was seated on the floor outside as he oiled a handgun. “Having fun?” she asked, slipping out and shutting the door so he wouldn’t see how much damage she had inflicted on her bed.

“Oh, yeah. This whole Bekah thing is great. You know how I love hunting wolves.” He dropped his rag and got up. “So what were you doing in there? Did you change?”